The Jackpot Page 12

  * * *

  Both Carter and Todd were on their feet now, circling each other like a pair of lions ready to duel for leadership of the pride. Carter edged toward the fireplace, where he grabbed the black steel poker. In the chill of the cabin, each man's breath came in increasingly ragged puffs of vapor. The ticket was clutched in Carter's left hand, dry and numb from the cold.

  "Get back," said Carter, waving the lance at Todd.

  "I'm really starting to wonder about you," Todd said. He drew the pistol from his waistband. "What, are you Luke Skywalker now?"

  "Fuck you," Carter said, his words coated with a thick film of anger.

  "Gimme the ticket."

  "No."

  The word roared from Carter's lips like a shot. Something inside Carter had snapped, he felt it as tangibly as if he'd broken a bone in his hand, and Todd would have to kill him for the ticket. It was that simple. He always suspected there would be a moment in his life where he would have to make a stand, and he realized that the moment had arrived. Sure, maybe once upon a time he thought that moment might come dressed as heroism or leadership in a time of disaster, like maybe during an apocalypse that he'd been strong enough to survive. He always thought he would survive one of those.

  Like a sprinter breaking from the blocks, Carter rushed at his brother-in-law, the poker raised like a spear. Almost simultaneously, the three witnesses to Carter's sudden offensive muttered the same exact word.

  "Shit."

  * * *

  Julius accepted this latest development with striking poise. He had been around sudden and terrible bursts of violence before – just last night, actually – and while this was certainly stranger than most, it still came down to money. As most things usually did. For most men of Julius' upbringing and background, death was usually close at hand. Babies dying of neglect, children gunned down in crossfires, mothers beaten by boyfriends armed with baseball bats, young men killed by their contemporaries. Death's constant presence hardened the soul like concrete, to the point that one was no longer afraid of it.

  That had to be one of the worst things about the projects.

  No one was afraid of death.

  Good thing, since death was already in the room, sitting on the sofa and watching the festivities like a drunk Yankees fan.

  * * *

  Across the room, with Julius equidistant from the combatants, Todd watched, with equal parts terror and shock, his bookish brother-in-law charging him. Carter's eyes revealed a man who seemed to have come unhinged mentally, almost like a zombie from those George Romero movies. In his seventeen-year association with his sister's husband, Todd had never seen this side of Carter Livingston Pierce. Oh, sure, he was a ruthless lawyer and all, but attorneys didn't deal in lead, as the saying went. They dealt in briefs and contracts and arguments and black robes.

  Todd fumbled with the pistol, which, while it looked menacing, might as well have been a caulk gun for as much skill as he had with it. Vaguely, he recalled chambering a round when they had arrived. He looked up and saw that Carter had already covered half the distance, the point of the poker guiding Carter like a divining rod.

  Jesus, he thought, his arm feeling like it was encased in quicksand. Come on, come on. The gun came up slowly. When he felt that he had a bead on his brother-in-law-turned-assailant, he pulled back on the trigger. The first shot boomed loudly in the sparsely furnished cabin, and the bullet flew wide left of Carter's head. Carter, insane with bloodlust, ignored the fusillade and continued his rabid assault.

  The second battle in the Great SuperLotto War had begun.

  * * *

  Outside, Samantha watched with horror. At first, she thought she was hallucinating, but her achy joints and sore throat kept her rooted in reality. The scene inside unfolded in rapid and sudden bursts, as if illuminated by a strobe light. For the rest of her life, the image of Carter charging at his brother-in-law would be burned upon her memory banks, as tangibly as a brand sizzling on a cow. She ducked low, her eyes nearly level with the windowsill.

  Four more booms crashed the rural stillness before Todd's gun went silent. As the battle raged inside, her mind focused on random yet somewhat interconnected thoughts, perhaps protecting her from the orgy of violence on the other side of the wall. How far would the sound of the gunshots carry? How much attention they would draw, especially in an area where gunfire was not uncommon? Was it deer season? Was it legal to hunt deer this late at night?

  Of the five shots that Todd managed to squeeze off, only one found any target.

  That lone bullet caught Julius Wheeler, multimillionaire, square in the temple and exited through the left side of his skull. Samantha did not want to believe that the airborne puff of pink was Julius' brain being forcibly ejected from his head. The force of the bullet's impact toppled the chair over, and Julius died a few seconds later. In those last few moments before everything went dark, he had one final, very odd thought.

  Samantha's perfume had smelled good.

  * * *

  Oblivious to the wild barrage of lead, Carter never broke stride until he had driven the poker into Todd's chest. The point slid into the flesh between Todd's ribs and pierced his heart. He stumbled forward like a wounded deer, his large frame knocking Carter off balance, and fell flat on his back. With Todd's aorta ruptured, life drained out of his body with frightening rapidity, and he died with his hands wrapped around the instrument of his demise.

  Carter, confronted with the image of his very-soon-to-be-late brother-in-law, stumbled backwards. His feet got tangled underneath him, and his momentum sent him sprawling back-first to the hardwood floor. His head struck the rock-hard floor first, slamming his brain against his skull, and Carter Pierce lay still. The lottery ticket, which had come loose from Carter's grip as he tripped, fluttered to the floor.

  The battle had lasted less than ten seconds.

  * * *

  Samantha sank to the ground, first to her knees and then to her hands. Her stomach rolled and roiled like a ship in rough seas, her dinner threatening to make a re-appearance. She drew in a few deep breaths of the crisp cold air and let each one out slowly. When the world stopped spinning, she willed herself to her feet. Like a baby calf walking for the first time, she staggered to her feet and stumbled across the clearing. Here in the darkness, Carter's Hummer lurked like a prehistoric beast.

  She stared at the truck for a moment, trying to comprehend what had just happened. Julius was dead. Todd was dead. Carter was dead. The sensory overload tripped a circuit in her head, and her mind went blank. Just empty. For a full three minutes, she stood numbly in front of the window, barely aware of where she was, or even what she had just seen.

  Eventually, though, information began seeping back into her head, and her analytical mind went to work. During law school, she spent a summer with the Henrico County Commonwealth's Attorney's office, which prosecuted crimes in that particular jurisdiction. During her three-month stint with the office, she had been to crime scenes, she had seen murder victims. She knew the police were well-trained, that they were reasonable, and that they would look at the facts.

  That was it. She needed to call the police and wait for the cavalry. She had nothing to fear. She was an attorney with no criminal record. She would explain what happened. Quite frankly, it wasn't all that complicated. No conspiracy here. Carter and Todd decided to steal the ticket, they turned on each other, and boom – this triple homicide thing behind her. With that settled, she started jogging back up the path.

  Then, just as quickly as she'd started, she stopped.

  Hang on there, chiquita. What about this, exactly, was normal? Her boss was dead. His brother-in-law was dead. Her new client was dead. And they were all dead because of a lottery ticket.

  What was going to happen to the ticket?

  Would Julius' son ever get it?

  How would anyone know Julius had been the one who bought the ticket?

  Would they even believe her?

  She
realized that as soon as she called the police, the ticket's fate would be clouded with uncertainty. There was no way to tell who would respond to the scene once she called it in and what moral compass they might be guided by. A patrol officer making thirty-five grand a year. A burned-out homicide detective. An overworked crime scene investigator. Someone would find the ticket and realize what it was. Then what? How would anyone ever prove that it didn't belong to the person who showed up with it at lottery headquarters? Besides her, the only ones who knew who the real owner was were dead. The temptation would be too great to resist.

  She knew this because she could feel the ticket's pull on her. Scenes from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy flashed through her mind. She thought about the Ring, about Frodo, about the spell the ring held over its bearer. It was ridiculous to think that she would ever encounter such a quandary. And yet here she was.

  Her mind drifted back to Julius, the man who could never escape the violence that surrounded his life like a barbed wire fence. She figured that Julius suspected his life might one day be cut short by gunfire, but she supposed that he never dreamed it would be by two white guys from the suburbs. Now there was a young man out there who had never known and would never know his father.

  The ticket was Jamal's.

  What the hell was she supposed to do now?

  * * *

  Her teeth clenched, Samantha turned to face the house. Oh my holy God, she thought. The idea of going in that house was as appealing as being dropped into a swimming pool stocked with crocodiles. Plus, although she was relatively certain that the ticket was in the house – really, they hadn't been killing each other in there over dominoes – the likely reality was that she was going to have to dig through a gigantic bloody mess to get to it.

  Did she really want to do this?

  First, for all she knew, police cruisers were already on their way, responding to some concerned citizen's 911 call. She held her breath and listened for something, anything, but the night was quiet and still, like a hibernating bear. Nothing moved. The house was on a large lot. She couldn't even see the next house through the thick tree cover. Second, was she really the type of gal who would get herself involved in tampering with a crime scene? But it was the only thing she could think of. If there was another solution, then, heck, she was all ears.

  Jesus, why did this have to happen to her? Quite a hand she'd been dealt today, given that waking up with what was likely a good dose of the flu was, by far, the high point of her day. Her head throbbed, as if someone was pushing out on her temples from the inside. Her reserves were fading fast, and the idea of crawling into the house and taking a nap on the couch was becoming increasingly attractive.

  She couldn't remember the last time she felt this sick. Quite frankly, if she had been feeling like this when Julius called her from the Exxon, she would've told him that Carter knew what he was doing and wished him luck. Even the thought of walking back to her car was almost too much to process.

  In the end, the decision was simple. Which Samantha did she want to look at in the mirror tomorrow morning? The one who had left the ticket's fate to chance? Or the one that had brought justice to Julius Wheeler?

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. With what little strength she had left, she marched up to the front door, which was still slightly ajar. Thank heavens for small favors. No need to worry about fingerprints. A gentle shove with an elbow sent the door wide open, revealing Julius centered in the doorframe.

  "God, if You're up there," she whispered to herself, "if You've got a better idea, I'm all ears."

  Getting no response, she stepped into the house. It was just as cold inside as it was outside. She wondered if they had been planning to kill Julius all along. She couldn't imagine Carter being capable of such a decision. Then again, money made people do some crazy shit.

  The scene was like one of those torture porn movies that had been all the rage a couple years ago. There was blood everywhere. Although there was no doubt in her mind that Julius was dead, she checked on him first. She knelt by his lifeless body, careful not to touch anything, wondering how much of the crime scene she was compromising just by setting foot in the house.

  Indeed, Julius was dead. She deduced this by noting that the bullet had blown out much of the left side of his head. In the chill of the cabin, the blood was already congealing. Her eyes watered, and a tear from each eye cut an icy trail down her cheeks.

  "Sorry, Julius," she whispered. And she was. Sorrier than she had ever been in her life.

  She wiped the tears across her sleeve and turned her attention to the two idiot gladiators who had caused all this commotion. Again, her detective skills were in top form when she examined Todd's body. Fine work, Inspector Khouri! Blood had trickled out of his nose and his mouth, and his eyes had rolled back into his head. And then, of course, was the matter of the giant steel pole sticking out of his chest. Well done, Inspector!

  Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the ticket resting on the floor, near Carter's head, his body lying in between her and the ticket. She leaned across his prone figure and plucked it off the ground, still tucked in Julius' plastic baggie. Her breathing became shallow, and her heart began to race. It felt like she was picking up a grenade. The ticket in hand, she knelt back on her haunches and stared at the six imprinted numbers.

  5. 9. 16. 17. 43. SuperBall: 24.

  Time to skedaddle, she thought. As she turned for the door, she heard a barely audible scrape behind her. The jumpstart to her heart shot her across the room like a cannonball. Quickly, she slipped out the door and down the steps. She snuck around to the side and reassumed her position by the window. From her perch, she watched Carter, still flat on his back, draw a knee up to his chest. He straightened it back out, but he didn't make a move to get up right away. Instead, he grabbed his head with both of his hands and moaned. He didn't seem to be aware of anything going on around him. He was alive, but he had taken a hell of a shot to his head on that ice-cold floor.

  Two independent thoughts bubbled to the surface of Samantha's boiling mind.

  1.All this activity could not be good for her health.

  2.Her career at Willett & Hall was most certainly over.

  A minute later, she was back behind the wheel of the Audi and zipping along Mountain Road. The Ticket was tucked snugly in her pocket.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Saturday, December 22

  12:31 a.m.

  "You want me to do what exactly?" the girl asked.

  Her website bio identified her as Krista, but her real name was Barbara Ziegler, which just didn't work for a two-grand-an-hour call girl. Krista was five-foot-ten, a redhead, and in extremely high demand. She didn't love her work, but she didn't hate it either, because, quite frankly, the money was effing awesome and the work was easy. Plus, she got to fuck for a living. That wasn't all bad.

  She had cracked six figures for the first time three years ago. Twenty-six years old, she had half a million bucks parked in mutual funds and planned to retire by the time she was thirty. Her clients were relatively tame, and the work was usually uneventful. She generally didn't care what even the wilder clients requested of her, because, truth be told, she was a relatively adventurous woman. She was a prostitute, after all. This, though, this took the freaking cake.

  They were in the presidential suite at the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Atlanta. She'd been here for an hour or so, and at first, it had started like any other night with a rich, lonely, and slightly overweight white guy in his fifties. They drank scotch, chatted about the Braves, talked about how beautiful she was. Typical stuff.

  Then it started to get weird, which had led to her question, clouded with confusion.

  Arden McKinley, however, shook his head with extreme disappointment in her query. He was the wealthy, lonely, and slightly overweight client mystifying his escort tonight. For the life of him, he didn't understand what was so hard about this part of the festivities.

&nb
sp; "Is it cooled off yet?" he asked.

  She shook her head, not in the negative, but in complete disbelief at the discussion she was having. She stepped over to the small oak table wedged in the corner, where she had placed the item that McKinley had requested. Sometimes, clients asked that she bring props, and she frequently complied. Props and toys were easy.

  She eyed the casserole dish on the table, filled to the brim with macaroni and cheese, which she had picked up on the way here. When he had booked the date through the service, he had requested homemade macaroni and cheese, but he could kiss her creamy-white Irish ass. She stopped in at a gourmet deli around the corner and paid eleven dollars for it. With a plastic spoon, she took a taste.

  "It's room temp," she said.

  "Bring it over here," he directed. "Sit in the wingback chair, take off your shoes and set the casserole dish on the floor."

  "Want me to get naked, big boy?"

  Usually, she teased the clients with a slow-moving strip show, but she was getting tired of this idiot. Something about him was just a bit off, and she didn't feel like putting up with it anymore. Suddenly, a pint of Haagen-Dazs sounded terribly good.

  "No, no," he said. "Just the shoes."

  Just the shoes. Great.

  "What was your name again, sweetie?" she asked as she removed her shoes.

  "Louis," he lied. "Louis Friend."

  "That your real name?"

  "What do you think?" he snapped. "The shoes?"

  She did as she was told, whiling away the time with calculations of how much green she was going home with. This macaroni business would take a few minutes, and then, she supposed, he would want to bang her. From the look of him, she guessed that would mean another two minutes. At most. With a little luck, she'd be done in an hour. Nights like this, she was glad she charged a minimum of two hours.